Idealism
by blank-nolongerinuseok
Summary: "Us loners should stick together." The tale of Janus Hassildor and Vicente Valtieri's friendship through the many years, from childhood leading all the way up to the Oblivion Crisis. AU


Prologue

"You look lonely."

Janus batted his eyes and glanced up at the skinny boy who had spoken, and then proceeded to ignore him.

"I'm lonely too," the skeleton of a boy piped up hopefully, wanting someone to talk to.

"Good for you," Janus mumbled. He was sat on a bench outside a shop in Mournhold, the capital city of Morrowind, waiting for his father, Erich Hassildor, to return from the store.

"Be a good boy," Erich had told his son, "and wait out here quietly. Sit on the bench, even – oh, and don't talk to strangers. Especially not people arriving or leaving this shop! Okay?"

"Okay, father," the five year old had replied indifferently. He had gotten used to his father keeping secrets from him and most of the time not bothering to interact with his son apart from scolding, instructing and ordering. Janus simply accepted the fact that his father had a lot of business in his life to deal with, and didn't have much time for such a plain, dreamy little son such as himself. Erich never noticed his son's discomforts and Janus never noticed how suspicious a character his father must seem to everybody else. He simply thought that all fathers were this way.

"You know, us loners have to stick together," the thin boy ventured.

Janus smiled at the phrasing. Indeed, it made him think a little about his social life – he didn't think of himself as lonely, he just thought he was away with the fairies too often to have anyone close to him, apart from his father, and even he was distant nearly all the time. However stupidly said, the skinny boy's words struck a chord – maybe Janus was a loner, but lied to himself to convince his own imaginative mind of otherwise.

"What's your name?" Janus asked the boy. He should at least know the name of the person – the first ever person – that had implied that they wanted to be friends with him.

The thin boy seemed surprised for a moment that Janus had actually said something to encourage the conversation forwards, and then smiled. "Vicente! Yours?"

"Janus Hassildor," Janus replied primly, but was then startled by Vicente's reaction.

Vicente's eyes grew comically wide and his jaw dropped slightly. "No way you're a Hassildor!"

Janus blinked, bewildered. "Excuse me?"

"Gee, no offence, but your clothes look a little worn here and there, and the Hassildors are meant to be mighty rich..."

The young Hassildor blinked yet again, even more confused. "We are?"

"You don't know anything about your own family? Shoot, now aren't you puzzled," Vicente laughed, but stopped when he saw Janus's face grow pink. "Aw, don't be embarrassed! I don't know that much yet about my family neither."

Janus gave a thin-lipped grin that was admittedly creepy, even though he didn't mean it to be and he was only five years old. The over-all ghostly pallor didn't really help the friendly look. "Then perhaps we have more in common than I thought."

Vicente's already cheerful face got even brighter. Despite being from a poor family and having very gaunt cheeks – strange for a child of his age – he always managed to look contented. "We sure do!"

At that moment, Erich emerged from the mysterious blacked out store. As soon as he saw the two boys interacting with each other, he rushed over. "What did I tell you about talking to people you don't know, sonny," he scolded, grabbing his son's shirt collar and tugging him away from the bench, giving Vicente a glare.

"But he's a nice person," countered Janus feebly.

"That doesn't excuse you going against my direct orders! You're so naive – I swear that if an old man with a sword offered you sweets in return for following him, you'd take them too!"

"Bye, Janus!" Vicente was waving a little over enthusiastically.

"Don't wave back," hissed Erich, "or I'll get mad. And you don't want Daddy mad, do you now?"

Janus scowled briefly, but then smirked and very slowly and deliberately waved back, even more enthusiastically than Vicente did. His father started spitting and shouting insults at him; nonetheless, Janus didn't care, because even as he was dragged across one of the many plazas of Mournhold by his more than slightly angry father, he thought over and over in his head:

_My friend! My first ever friend!_

...

Vicente was slightly worried for Janus when he saw his rather deranged father, but couldn't keep the bold grin from his bony face as he rushed home to tell his mother that he had made his first ever friend, and that he knew, as soon as he'd laid his sight upon the Hassildor boy, that they were going to be the best friends ever.


End file.
